phrase: sui generis

When reading I often find myself bemoaning the fact that I've never studied Latin.  The Latin phrase of the day is sui generis,¹ which more or less means "in a class of its own." Apparently generis is the genitive case of genus (which we should all know from taxonomy) and sui means "self" or in this case "of him/her/itself."

1. I came across this phrase in a discussion of Scottish author Alasdair Gray and his work.

word: concinnitous

I've been working my way through Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age. ("working" because science fiction is a bit challenging for me)

Last night I came upon an interesting unfamiliar word, presented here in context:

"Pardon me, Your Honor, the concept is not easy to explain--there is an ineffable quality to some technology, described by its creators as concinnitous, or technically sweet, or a nice hack--signs that it was made with great care by one who was not merely motivated but inspired." (102)

Obviously Stephenson, in the voice of Miss Pao, provides a nice explanation, but I felt the need to dig a little deeper.

Apparently concinnitous (adjective) is an anglicized version of the Latin concinnitas (root concinnus). The noun concinnity seems to be more widely used (though mostly with regard to language or rhetoric).

I really do need to learn Latin.